Tight budgets, backlog of requests created unsafe school environments
NEWARK — The water-damaged walls and ceilings at the American History High School in Newark are so weak that they blister and flake, causing chunks of white plaster to rain on students’ heads.
It’s happened during lunch, exams, assemblies and even when people walk in the building, forcing Principal Robert Gregory to cordon off the auditorium and main entrance.
Every rain or snowstorm exacerbates structural woes at the 118-year-old building as dilapidated pipes freeze, then crack and leak puddles onto classroom floors. A squall earlier this year left students in the cafeteria suddenly sitting beneath a torrent of toilet water streaming from a cracked pipe.
"It was always my fear that a student would come through the collapsing floor," Gregory said.
But he, like many administrators in the state’s poorest districts, is at the mercy of a cash-strapped state agency whose work they say has slowed to a trickle.
"Our many structural problems required immediate assistance from the Schools Development Authority, but unfortunately the work has not been done," Gregory said.
The development authority is the state agency responsible for construction and repairs in 31 of New Jersey’s largest and poorest school districts, including Newark.
But a backlog of dozens of urgent requests has left schools without the masonry, boiler and roof repairs needed to keep students safe, school and authority officials say.
The development authority’s origins trace back to a 1998 Abbott v. Burke decision by the state Supreme Court that ordered New Jersey to provide 100 percent funding for all school renovation and construction projects in special-needs districts, formerly known as "Abbotts." In 2000, the state launched the School Construction Program, which later became the Schools Construction Corp.
A 2005 report by the state inspector general found the agency rife with "waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars," and the state overhauled it once again, creating the School Development Authority in 2007.
The authority most recently had 310 employees and an operating budget of $52 million, not including the funds allocated for school construction. But on Friday, SDA officials began sending layoff notices to nearly two dozen employees, about 10 percent of the staff, said Kristen MacLean, an agency spokeswoman.
Because not all of the affected staff had been notified, the authority did not release the exact numbers. But MacLean said the layoffs are expected to be the only cuts for the time being and the loss of staff will not affect school projects.
Marc Larkins, the authority’s chief economic officer, said emergency projects that must be dealt with immediately are not on hold even though he acknowledges the authority has not begun work on any such requests made in 2010.
Emergency repair requests simply "take time," Larkins said.
"We’ve been afforded a finite pot of money and we need to figure out the best way to allocate it," Larkins said of the $97 million the authority has to fund emergency repairs. "The demand and scope of the work in districts exceeds the available funding we have."
View looking out from inside the only functioning bathroom at Newark's American History High School on Warren St., where persistent water damage from roof leaks has caused the wall plaster to come off in large chunks.Assembly Education Committee Chairman Patrick Diegnan (D-Middlesex) called Larkins’ argument "absolutely unacceptable, inexcusable and obscene" because the authority could ask its board to bond for additional money.
"We wonder why kids can’t learn. Imagine being in one of these schools with health and safety hazards, with boilers that are broken and bathrooms that don’t work," Diegnan said. "Even if construction of new, desperately needed schools remains on hold, at least the emergent repairs should be complete."
Diegnan questioned whether the delay could be rooted in politics and the governor’s oft-stated intention to cut spending in a state that’s going broke. He said he plans to compel Larkins to testify before his committee and explain the delay.
The authority’s work on emergency projects has not been at a total standstill. Its construction portfolio includes 54 such projects, an authority spokesman said, but those requests were all made before Christie took office last year. Some date back to 2007.
And as the list of requests grows, school officials in Newark, Camden and Jersey City say their concerns for student safety are mounting as well.
Steve Morlino, executive director of facilities management for the Newark Public Schools, said the district has submitted 47 requests for emergent repair work that have not been addressed. He said it would cost $250 million to complete them all — more than double the funding the authority has allotted for repairs statewide.
In the meantime, the district must come up with makeshift solutions. To protect pedestrians from falling bricks, scaffolding has been erected over sidewalks at eight schools. Fences surround other schools to prevent students and staff from venturing into "fall zones."
"At Maple Avenue, the elementary school first lady Michelle Obama visited, a four- to five-foot length of bricks fell from the highest story of the building in the middle of the night and embedded itself into the grass," Morlino said. "This happened just a few days before she arrived."
Morlino believes that a bureaucratic snag is holding up the emergency repair requests between the state Department of Education, which vets them and forwards them, and the authority itself.
"The SDA isn’t responding because they have no funding," he said. "The bottom line is no work on emergent stuff is moving forward and it’s becoming more and more of a problem."
View of an archway on the entrance to Newark's American History High School on Warren St., where the bricks have become separated resulting in the arch to be deemed "unsafe" by a state structural engineer. Bernard Piaia, the Department of Education’s school facilities financing director, could not be reached for comment about a possible delay in vetting emergent project requests. A Department of Education spokesman said no such delay exists.
But Wendy Kutz, director of facilities construction for the Camden school district, echoed Morlino’s frustration. She said there has been less work on emergent requests this year than in previous years. There seems to be "paralysis" at the authority, she added.
"We don’t have a tax base to draw from in Camden, and we are not allowed to do our own school construction work according to the Abbott law," Kutz said. "We are only allowed to spend what the DOE and SDA allow us to spend, so we are between a rock and a hard place."
One emergent request made by Camden two and a half years ago took two weeks to complete once construction got under way, Kutz said.
State Sen. Donald Norcross (D-Camden) also criticized the authority’s inaction in light of its hundreds of employees and multimillion-dollar budget. Norcross chairs the Joint Committee on Public Schools’ subcommittee on school facilities and construction.
Common sense dictates that if there’s an emergency, "we have to fix it," Norcross said. He also intends to ask Larkins to testify about the authority’s "unacceptable" delay in addressing emergent requests.
"They have plenty of help over there. It’s time to stop planning and start working," Norcross said. "The children down here in Camden and Gloucester have the same right to safe and secure schools as they do in Voorhees and Cherry Hill."
In the meantime, emergent repairs remain incomplete for many districts. When winter break ended two weeks ago for American History High’s students, they resumed classes at another school across town.
Their former, crumbling building had become too dangerous to use.